Dr. Farrukh Iqbal, Dean & Director IBA presented his first academic lecture after joining IBA on the topic “The Inclusivity of the Development Process in Pakistan” at the AERC (Applied Economics Research Centre) for the Prof. Dr. Ehsan Rashid Memorial Lecture, today on September 08, 2016. The lecture session started with the recitation from the Holy Quran. Starting the proceedings Prof. Dr. Samina Khalil, Director AERC invited Dr. Farrukh Iqbal and Dr. Uzma (In charge for the session) on the stage.

Dr. Samina welcomed Dr. Farrukh Iqbal and all the esteemed guests present to the lecture. She shed light on the illustrious life of Prof. Dr. Ehsan Rashid, who laid the foundation for AERC in 1973 and was also AERC’s first director. She said Prof. Dr. Ehsan Rashid was a man of many merits, who devoted his life to acquiring knowledge and promoting education.

Addressing the aspiring Economists and other esteemed guests present, Dr. Farrukh said that he was part of the early development stages of AERC and that he was returning to it after a long gap of 35 years and was very pleased to be back. Shedding light on human development, Dr. Farrukh said that Inclusivity Development some would say is a fad term but in his opinion it was here to stay for good. Some areas which Dr. Farrukh elaborated upon were marginalized groups, child mortality rate amongst the poor, balanced development, social development, measures for inequality in income, health and education; within the context of the Pakistani environment.

Encouraging the applied Economists, he said all Economists should take a concept and look at it empirically, he also encouraged them to delve in Google research as a starting point as it’s a facility that wasn’t available 20 years ago but for concrete research one should go to primary data for conclusive results. Dr. Farrukh also shared UNDP and Oxfam’s definitions for Inclusive Development.

The focus of his lecture was on the poor and marginalized sector of Pakistan, Dr. Farrukh shared that the child mortality has declined within the past 5 years from 125 in 2006-7 to 119 five years later and the bottom quintile for children going to school has risen from 5.9 to 6.1. Sharing his research with the learned audience, Dr. Farrukh concluded that the overall data shows that child mortality has declined over the years, whereas health and education inequalities have increased.

The lecture was fruitful and informative; the audience demonstrated keen interest in the information shared and made informed observations and asked many thought-provoking questions.